I'm holding on for a hero 'til the end of the night

Wow, it's been a SUPER week since our last blog. Once again, the RiverRun International Film Festival proved how SUPER it is, bringing out a record crowd and continuing to showcase some SUPER films and parties. Aaron Katz was a juror at the festival, and then was kind enough to stick around while we showed his film Cold Weather and host some Q&As (thank you again, Aaron and everyone who attended). So how do we follow up on all this SUPERness? Why let's open the movie SUPER! Rainn Wilson stars as a short order cook who brings the self made superhero vigilante justice, with the help of sidekick Ellen Page, to the drug dealer who stole his wife away.

So, this may not be the easiest sell, but maybe my subliminal SUPER messaging has worked? No? How about two fabulous reviews, this one from local Yes! Weekly critic Mark Burger and this "deliciously gonzo" review in the current issue of Relish. Still not enough for you? What if we throw in a cute little kid and our staff dressed up as their own crime fighters?

And we'll top that with a chance to win a Becket level membership in our a/v society, good for two years. That's a $6 ticket plus $1 concession credit each time you visit a/perture (special events excluded) and free admission and popcorn on your birthday! Come dressed up in your best homemade superhero outfit for a chance to win. Need some inspiration? Check out the Super trailer below:

Only one week to catch it, so don't let the Crimson Bolt find out you committed the criminal mistake of missing it, or face the wrath of his wrench!

It may be Spring...but it's time for Cold Weather baby...

So in the midst of the most amazing RiverRun International Film Festival yet, I haven't really made time to blog....that is until tonight when I get to share a really cool interview with director Aaron Katz. We'll get to the fun stuff in a second, but first business. Next week, Monday, April 18 thru Thursday, April 21, we will be screening the indy hit Cold Weather.

Cold Weather was written, directed and edited by Aaron Katz, who also by the way graduated from the UNCSA School of Filmmaking. He has already seen success with films such as Quiet City and Dance Party, USA. Aaron will be in town to serve as a Juror for RiverRun and he has graciously agreed to stay on for a couple of days while we screen his latest work. He will be stopping by a/perture on Monday 4/18 and Tuesday 4/19 for a q&a session following each screening.

Check out the interview below and trailer below that:

What film do you remember from film school at UNCSA having the greatest influence on you and why?

There were a lot of movies I saw for the first time while in school.

It's hard to narrow it down to just one. For some reason the main

thing that's occurring to me is Dr. Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom

Beam starring Jim Varney. I've never actually seen this film as an

audience member, but when I was learning to project in the NCSA

archives this was one of our practice prints.

Did you know that wikipedia cites you as one of the two founders of the mumblecore movement? Can you define mumblecore for us in your own words? When you made your first film Dance Party USA did you think it would lead to a movement?

Mumblecore is odd for everyone who made Dance Party and the other two

movies as well. Though it's mentioned often in conjunction with the

movies we've made, it feels completely outside of any part of making

those movies. It was coined (apparently, I wasn't there) by Andrew

Bujalski's sound mixer in a bar in Austin, TX sometime in 2005. I

guess he made a joke about people mumbling and making sound recording

difficult. Somehow this caught on with journalists and began to be

used to describe low budget films made by people like Bujalski, Joe

Swanberg, the Duplass Brothers, and me. On the one hand it was pretty

useful with Dance Party (which we made right after graduating from

NCSA) because that movie was so small and we didn't have money to hire

a publicist or anything. Honestly, we were just happy to have people

writing about the movie we made. Beyond that though the term can feel

a little frustrating, especially because it frequently has a

pejorative slant. Fortunately I don't think it's had much impact with

Cold Weather and most of the reviews focus on the movie itself rather

than contextualizing it within mumblecore.

You've shown all of your films at SXSW so far, what is it about that particular festival that really attracts you?

My feeling is that if it wasn't for SXSW no one would have ever seen

any of my movies. Back in 2006 SXSW was the first festival Dance Party

played in and the reason it played there is because the head

programmer at the time was a guy named Matt Dentler. Matt watched

every cold submitted screener and was willing to take risks on films

and filmmakers that no one had ever heard of. Additionally Austin is a

fun city and the community of filmmakers both from Austin and there

for the festival is really great.

So Cold Weather is a mystery film, have you always been a fan of the genre and did you always want to make a mystery at some point in your career or did the story idea just come to you all at once with no regard for the genre?

I'm a huge fan of the mystery genre, particularly in book form. The

script was originally not a mystery. It was just a story about a

brother and sister living together and getting to know each other

better. At that time I happened to be reading a book (from around the

same time period as Sherlock Holmes) about a gentleman thief named

Raffles. I had been reading a lot of older crime fiction and it

started to creep into the script. At first I wasn't sure if it was a

good idea because it was totally unplanned, but then I started having

a lot of fun with it. It made a lot of sense to me to have real

characters interacting with things usually only encountered in genre

fiction.

You've gotten some pretty amazing reviews from critics like Manohla Dargis, Roger Ebert and Christy Lemire for Cold Weather..kudos...and it got picked up for distribution by IFC Films...when you were filming, did you get the vibe that Cold Weather was going to be "bigger" than your previous films?

We had a bigger budget so the production itself was on a somewhat

bigger scale. We definitely hoped that we'd get a positive response,

but mostly we wanted to make movie that we were proud of. It was

exciting that the people at IFC loved the movie and it's been great

that critics understand the film.

The poster for Cold Weather is pretty cool...did you come up with that idea? Will you sign ours?

I love the poster. Marc Ripper, who graduated with me in 2004 and

produced Dance Party designed it. He based it off of the covers of

Penguin crime paperbacks from the 60s. I will sign yours.

Do you think you might ever come back and shoot a film in Winston-Salem?

I love Winston-Salem and I'd love to shoot something there at some point.

Last question...we've heard that you like the milkshakes from Cookout...what is your go-to shake?

Cookout is one of the main reasons I love North Carolina. My favorite

shake is the peanut butter banana, but there's a ton of other good

ones as well. I'm hoping to get at least five or six while I'm in

town. I also love West End Cafe and I'm hoping to go there as many

times as possible.

hipster heartbeats

For those of you who are either a part of the hipster crowd or curious about this mysterious culture, Heartbeats is the film for you. What you may ask is a hipster..here is the official wikipedia definition: In the late 1990s, the term began to be used in new, sometimes mutually exclusive ways. In some circles it became a blanket description for middle class and upper class young people associated with alternative culture, particularly alternative music, independent rock, alternative hip-hop, independent film and a lifestyle revolving around thrift store shopping, eating organic, locally grown, vegetarian, or vegan food, drinking local beer (or even brewing their own), listening to public radio, and riding bicycles.[1] Time described them as follows in a 2009 article: "take your grandmother's sweater and Bob Dylan's Wayfarers, add jean shorts, Converse All-Stars and a can of Pabst and bam — hipster."[5]

Basically Heartbeats is a hipster dramedy and here is the gist of the film: Heartbeats is a comic exploration of a romantically obsessed menage-a-trois. Part farce, part exploration of the complexity of love and desire, Heartbeats centers on two close friends, Francis (Xavier Dolan) and Marie (Monia Chokri), who find themselves fighting for the affections of the same striking young man (Neils Schneider). The more intimate the trio becomes, the more unattainable the object of their infatuation seems, sending the friends' obsession into overdrive. Directed by Xavier Dolan (whose previous film I Killed My Mother was a hit at last year's RiverRun) Heartbeats was a smashing success at the Cannes Film Festival taking home the Youth Prize. Here is a review for further encouragement to check out the film and the trailer below:

If you are really into the hipster scene after reading this blog...you should try playing hipster bingo...and don't worry we have restocked our supply of PBR in case there is a run!